Wild Strawberry: The Motorcycle Diaries

by Donnelly, T. A.

  Meanwhile, the other two monsters had almost caught up with him.

  He forced himself to ease off on the accelerator, slowing down so that the tyres could bite.

  When his pursuers were almost on top of him he started to move, slowly at first, the zombies keeping pace with the back of the bike. Then with a burst of speed he approached the access road, and finally led the creatures away from the house.

  * * *

  The middle-aged bikers’ gang waited until the sound of Troy’s engine was a distant buzz before they wheeled their bikes silently across the road and into the yard outside the farmhouse.

  “OK people,” Jeffrey whispered, “everyone look around, make sure they’ve all gone, then meet back here in five minutes.”

  Joe did not move; he stood in the yard staring into space.

  Jeffrey noticed him and put a hand on his shoulder.

  Joe flinched from his touch.

  “Sorry,” said Jeffrey, “you stay here and keep watch for us? Can you do that for us Joe?”

  His friend did not answer.

  “OK, then.” Jeffrey trotted off to explore the house and grounds.

  He almost trod on the remains of the woman Troy had run over with his bike. One arm was broken just below the shoulder and flapped uselessly; the other ended in a pulped mess just after the elbow, and the stump was waggling furiously. The face was barely recognisable as human, but a snapping mouth was still visible, and hungry. The back must have been broken, as the creature did not move its legs.

  “Oh please!” Jeffrey said disgustedly, and looked away to carry on with his search.

  After five minutes they gathered again in the yard. They had found nothing more than the mangled corpse by the side of the truck.

  Jeffrey stood, silently, looking down the road where Troy had disappeared.

  “Well?” Terry asked

  “Let’s give Troy a few more minutes,” Jeffrey pleaded.

  They waited…

  Joe continued to stare into space…

  Terry wandered about the yard, kicking stones and whistling quietly to himself…

  Jeffrey scanned the horizon, biting his nails…

  After twenty minutes of this they decided to go inside and prepare for Troy’s return.

  “It’s more than possible that they’ll find their way back here,” Terry pointed out anxiously, his arms wrapped around himself as he spoke. “They may retrace their steps, they may follow Troy, or some primitive homing instinct may survive in their rotting heads.”

  “Comforting,” said Jeffrey, sarcastically, “what do you want us to do about it?”

  “I dunno, I just think we should do something.”

  “Well OK, we have to get ready for Troy’s return,” Jeffrey stated, taking charge once again. “Get weapons, and barricade the house. We can block the road pretty effectively with the truck. Then all we need worry about are those that come in from the countryside. I could be wrong, but I suspect there’ll be a lot less of those.”

  Terry asked, “Anyone able to drive that thing?”

  “Me,” volunteered Jeffrey with a smile, “I’m H.G.V. Positive! Got my licence driving trucks for the Territorial Army.”

  Terry looked incredulously at Jeffrey. “No way!”

  “You’d be surprised at my hidden talents,” boasted Jeffrey with a wink.

  “Yeah whatever!”

  “OK then,” Jeffrey clapped his hands. “Terry, would you look for weapons? Axes, hammers, crowbars, anything hard, spiky and easy to use.”

  Terry nodded.

  “Joe-” Jeffrey looked at his friend seriously “-Joe, why don’t you just sit down here?” Jeffrey led him to a sofa and guided him into it.

  “Right, I’ll check for food.”

  Terry found a machete, an axe and a variety of hammers, searching the tool shed. Jeffrey found a pair of shotguns and asked Terry if he could shoot.

  Terry sniffed. “Never tried.”

  “Then I suggest we saw the barrel off yours. Makes it useless at long range, but very effective up close.”

  “I don’t want to be up close with any of those things again.”

  “Neither do I, but we don’t want to waste shells. This way when they get-” Jeffrey stopped and corrected himself, “-this way if they get up close you get a weapon that’s going to be hard to miss with.”

  “What about you?”

  “Oh I’ve told you already, I used to play soldiers at weekends with the Territorials.”

  “Keep the gun with you at all times; just make sure you have the safety-catch on. You don’t want to blow your arm off when you bend down to tie your shoe-lace.”

  Jeffrey looked out of the window, and asked, “what’s keeping Troy?”

  Terry said nothing; he didn’t think Jeffrey would appreciate his thoughts on the matter.

  “I’m going to go out after him.”

  Terry held up his hand, saying, “Wait a minute mate, and think about it. Now don’t over-react when I say this, but Troy might be dead.”

  “Oh nonsense,” Jeffrey retorted, and tried to wave the idea away with his hand as if it were a bad smell. “He’s the best rider amongst us, and he’s smart and fit.”

  “Well let’s just think about what could be happening, OK? If he’s dead, then he’s dead and going out there is not going to help him.”

  “But if he’s alive,” Jeffrey protested.

  Again Terry interrupted, arguing, “if he’s alive he’s either on the road, in which case he’ll be back soon…”

  Jeffrey nodded, this was what he wanted to hear.

  “…Or he’s hit trouble and survived, in which case he’ll have found somewhere safe, even if it’s just up a tree. And if he’s climbed a tree he’ll be able to last there til morning. It’s starting to get dark; we won’t see those things coming, so you should wait till morning.”

  Reluctantly Jeffrey agreed, but before they settled down for the night he drove the truck into the access road. It fitted snugly against the hedge on either side. It was not a solid barricade, but it would stop any creatures wandering aimlessly down towards the house, and it was poised for a quick getaway if necessary.

  Most importantly, in Jeffrey’s eyes, Troy would be able to get in the truck if he squeezed against the hedge.

  Next Terry and Jeffrey arranged the food they had found in the kitchen cupboards alongside all the food they had taken from the garage. There was enough for a few weeks, a month if they were careful.

  “Well it could be worse,” said Jeffrey, “besides this is a farm; there must be something out there we can eat.”

  “We got these-” Terry held up his shotgun, “-we could hunt.”

  “We could. But I’m not sure if it’d be a good idea to make so much noise.”

  Terry shuddered, “OK you’ve got a point.”

  “But,” persisted Jeffrey, then he trailed off, lost in thought.

  “But what mate?”

  “Oh nothing!” Jeffrey sighed, “Just thinking about Troy, out there and alone.”

  “The whole thing…” Terry began, but then didn’t know how to describe the horror of everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

  They started to settle down for the night. Every door and window was locked and bolted, every curtain drawn.

  There was no power, but they decided to stay in the dark rather than risk calling attention to themselves by lighting one of the candles they had found in a cupboard.

  They each chose a room upstairs. Jeffrey wanted the large bedroom so he could share with Troy when he returned.

  Troy did not return that night.

  The next day Jeffrey mounted his bike and rode for an hour down the road in the direction Troy had disappeared the day before.

  He encountered zombies in increasing numbers as he neared a larger town, but there was no sign of Troy, nor his bike lying in a ditch beside the road.

  Eventually he reached a point where the road was blocked, and a horde of
creatures came streaming over the wrecked cars towards him. He skidded to a halt and turned round to head back to the farmhouse.

  For the next three days Jeffrey made shorter and shorter reconnoitres for Troy, but every day he found nothing but zombies in ever increasing numbers.

  The three bikers settled down to life in the farmhouse.

  They discovered that there were chickens that seemed to be kept as pets, as there were only six of them, but fresh eggs every day were a great boost to their rations. When chicken food ran out they could eat the birds, so they felt they could survive there for several months.

  Joe gradually returned to his old self, but he was quieter than before, and more prone to sitting, staring blankly ahead if he hadn’t any jobs to do.

  They dismantled a shed and used the wood to line both sides of the doors and windows of the house to create a sturdy barricade.

  They also reinforced the perimeter of the yard.

  There was already a fence, but they added panels from the shed, moved farm machinery into strategic positions.

  They found some paint in one of the sheds and painted ‘SOS’ in large letters on either side of the roof.

  By the end of the first week they were fairly secure. Very occasionally a zombie would shamble down the road, and sometimes hear the activity inside their living space. Fortunately, a thick hedge faced the creatures and a road blocked by a large, black truck so they couldn’t figure out how to get inside.

  On one occasion, one of the creatures managed to penetrate the hedge along side of the truck. However, the trio knew it was coming and had time to get ready; Terry with his machete, Jeffrey with an axe, and Joe with a hammer.

  As soon as the creature appeared through the hedge they started to rain blows on its head. Within seconds its skull was crushed, and it fell to the ground before it was able to attack.

  Once secure in the farmhouse they began to work out their next move.

  “My son, Elvis,” Terry began, “he’s in just about the safest place in the country; he must be OK in prison.”

  They all wanted to think that their loved ones were alive somewhere out there. They all wanted to believe that the police or army would be along soon to sort out the whole mess. But as the days passed their faith dwindled.

  Terry became increasingly convinced that they should head for Bexleyheath Young Offenders Institution, where his son was serving six months for G.B.H. “We could take the truck,” he insisted. “Even if it’s surrounded by the dead, it’s as secure as fuck. There’s no way those things will be able to get inside.”

  Jeffrey didn’t want to leave the farmhouse; he still hoped that Troy would find his way back to them. “He’s probably holed up in a house somewhere,” he insisted.

  Joe added very little to these discussions.

  Four weeks later and their conversations continued to go round in circles.

  “We have food for another two-ish weeks,” Jeffrey calculated, having taken all the food out of the cupboards, “then we’re down to eggs and the occasional chicken.”

  They cooked over a barbeque that they set had up in an empty barn. The cooked at night so that the smoke would not be seen by the dead, and they cooked indoors so that the flames would not attract attention. What they couldn’t help was the smell of the food cooking, but they hoped that it wouldn’t travel far.

  It was during one of these night-time meals in the barn that Troy finally returned.

  They were gathered round talking as usual in hushed voices so as to avoid attracting the attention of the undead.

  Jeffrey pointed a fork towards several cans of petrol that were stacked against the wall of the barn, asking, “Are you sure it’s a good idea to keep those things so near the fire?”

  “Safe as houses,” replied Terry, “they’re the other side of the barn, and it’s much safer to limit the number of buildings we use.”

  Just then they all heard the sound of somebody coming through the hedge, snapping branches and scraping against the truck.

  “Quick!” Jeffrey shouted, “Get ready with the weapons!”

  The survivors duly gathered with their machete, axe and hammer.

  A figure in torn, black leathers and a cracked motorbike helmet staggered out from the narrow gap.

  “T-Troy?” Jeffrey asked, his voice thick with emotion.

  The dark-tinted visor of his motorbike helmet covered the newcomer’s face, but he turned to face Jeffrey when he heard his name spoken.

  For a moment Jeffrey imagined their tearful reunion: they would kiss, and hold each other, and though the world had fallen apart they would have their ‘happily-ever-after.’

  Then the creature lunged for Jeffrey, hands clawing at his face. It was on top of Jeffrey before any of them could do anything about it.

  “No, no, no,” Jeffrey sobbed, as he tried to fight off his lover half-heartedly.

  Joe and Terry tried to kill their ill-fated friend, but its helmet prevented them from doing any real damage.

  Meantime, Jeffrey was growing increasingly hysterical.

  Fighting his friend was bad enough, but Jeffrey’s screams cut straight through Terry. He couldn’t take any more, so he unstrapped his sawn-off shotgun, slipped off the safety catch, set it against the side of the head of his friend-turned-monster and pulled the trigger.

  Troy’s head exploded.

  The noise deafened them all for a moment; it seemed the loudest thing that Jeffrey had ever heard. His ears hurt and his head was pounding, but worst of all he had lost Troy. Troy had undoubtedly been wandering around as one of those things for days, but still he had come home to his lover.

  Now Troy’s head was scattered across the yard, his cold dead body lying across Jeffrey’s hysterical form.

  Terry and Joe pulled Troy’s body away, and helped Jeffrey to his feet.

  He was weak, his legs barely holding him upright.

  “Oh Troy. Oh my God, Troy!” he sobbed.

  “Wait!” Terry shouted, “Shhhh! Do you hear that?”

  There was a frantic scratching sound from the barricade they had erected at the back of the yard.

  “Quick!” Joe hissed, “Back to the house! The fucking gun! They heard the fucking gun! They’re coming for us!”

  They part carried, part dragged Jeffrey back into the house, as the scratching gave way to the sound of cracking wood and planks falling to the ground.

  Once inside they bolted the door, and wedged it closed with planks of wood.

  Terry remembered the meal they had been cooking in the barn. “Man, I’m hungry, I wish we’d been able to finish our supper.”

  Jeffrey groaned, and responded bitterly, “I’m sorry Troy’s death was so inconvenient for you!”

  “No man, that’s not what I meant.”

  The downstairs windows were all barricaded, so Joe ran upstairs to look out and see how many zombies had managed to get through.

  There were around two dozen of them. Half of their number wandered into the barn where the barbeque was now burning the food. The others wandered around the outside of the house. It looked as if they could sense the presence of the living, but could not work out quite where they were hiding.

  Joe ran down stairs, and spoke to the others in an urgent whisper, “This place is fucked! It’s crawling with them out there.”

  * * *

  In the barn a zombie that had once been a teenage boy staggered towards the barbeque. The creature had a screwdriver stuck into the side of its head, although whether this injury had been inflicted before or after death it was impossible to tell. Apart from the screwdriver, the corpse was in good condition; the bite marks in its arm were barely visible through the torn black shirt he was wearing.

  The zombie stopped in front of the fire, and tilted its head, looking curiously at the flames.

  It put its hand out to touch the grill of the barbeque, and the flesh of the hand hissed and burned as it was held against the hot metal.

  Something in the remnant
s of the creature’s brain told it that this was wrong. Although the monster could feel no pain, a rudimentary instinct for self-preservation made it push the fire away.

  Hot coals scattered across the floor of the barn, skidding to a stop by the dry, wooden walls.

  As the zombie looked from its fingers, now resembling grilled sausages, to the barn wall, which was beginning to smoke, it let out a low, mournful groan.

  Flames started to lick up the side of the barn, as the zombie watched them. It knew this was significant, maybe even as significant as its hunger, but it could not comprehend why.

  Other creatures stepped forward to watch closely as the fire reached some containers stacked against the walls, before the flames licked greedily around them too.

  The inevitable explosion sent flames bursting from the door and upper windows of the barn, and instantly the whole building was on fire.

  “What the fuck was that?” Joe shouted as the flash briefly illuminated the room through cracks in the boards over the windows.

  Jeffrey spoke, his voice dead and lifeless, a man defeated, “I told you it was a bad idea to keep the petrol so close to the fire.”

  The survivors made their way upstairs to look out of the windows to see what was going on.

  Two zombies staggered out of the blazing barn. Both were still on fire; one tripped over Troy’s dead body. This also started to burn as the creature thrashed around on top of it, trying to get up.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” Terry was shaking his head as he watched, “they’re going to set the truck on fire.”

  Jeffrey sighed, briefly surfacing from the shock and sadness that had his seized him since Troy’s death, “We’ve got to do something: the flames will spread to the house!”

  “Shit, shit, shit!”

  “Yep, it’s shit, but it’s also time to go.”

  “The bikes?” Joe asked doubtfully.

  “Even if we got to them we couldn’t get them started in time. It’s got to be the truck. We can lure those things to this side of the house then fuck out the back door – it’s only a couple paces to the hedge.”

  “What the fuck? Eh?” said Terry. “Let’s do it.”

  Terry threw open the window and started to shout, “Yoo hoo, you dead fuckers, dinner time! Come and get it while it’s hot!”